Joan's already tapped the kegger, Thomas is toiling away on his famous Pigs in a Blanket, and we know some of you are so geared up for today's big game you're already applying your second coat of face paint. Tell us about it!

Or more specifically, blog about your game… Read full post »

. . .  Scruffus, whose post Revitalization of Our Inner Cities Can Transform Our Culture was picked as the winning entry to the question: What innovation do you think can most transform our culture? 

To read and respond to Lexus's Week 3 contest question, go here. Again, the winning entry… Read full post »

We've added a smarter spam filter to the in-site messaging system. It's been trained over the past few months to recognize the unsolicited commercial emails that invariably make it into any system. We're hopeful that it will make a big difference.

Here's how it works:

1). You now… Read full post »

The NYT's Jane Gross, a veteran reporter who now maintains the paper's The New Old Age blog, makes a very nice reference to our own Hawley Roddick, who wrote so thoughtfully and memorably about her mother's suicide. Gross, whose own mother ended her own life by "voluntarily refusing hydration and nut… Read full post »

The first winner of the weekly $200 contest is Fingerlakeswanderer for her great answer to the question: What sustainability issue do you think should be the country's top priority?

If you haven't read it yet, it's right here. 

Be sure to check out this week's question… Read full post »

Many of you are in D.C. for the week's historic festivities. Tell us about it: Post your photos, videos, your great stories on Open Salon. If you're not already a member, join here. We'll be combing the site for great submissions through Tuesday evening -- just tag your posts inauguration.… Read full post »

For some of us, this is a red-letter TV weekend. First, tonight is the debut of "Battlestar Galactica" (10/9 p.m. C; Sci Fi Channel) a show that I (and definitely someone else around here) adore. We suspect its heady mix of  sci-fi and the spiritual probably sunk its hooks into plenty… Read full post »

Our latest sponsor on Open Salon is Lexus -- with an innovative, added incentive. 

Lexus will be asking Sponsored Open Calls -- which will appear as usual, in the righthand column on the Open cover. Every week for the next few weeks we'll pick one exceptional response to the question to… Read full post »

I don't usually mention Salon proper over here -- hey, it's got its own flashy cover! -- but wanted to mention a new series launching today that I've had a hand in.  "Americans Talk About Love," a series of oral histories compiled by writer John Bowe ("Nobodies," "GIG") will chronicle, well… Read full post »

Two alerts on this fine Friday:

1). My spidey senses tell me that Sally's  wonderful account of her AOL chat with Britney Spears could be a real viral hit. If you're inspired, join me in sharing it with the social bookmark crowd. (Me, I like Reddit.)

No idea what I'm… Read full post »

This week's Open Call has us looking, oh, two weeks down the road toward a new administration and fresh political era wondering just what President Obama will and can accomplish. We know what's been promised -- and the larger forces complicating that.

But we want to know what be your… Read full post »

I suspect many of you look  to 2009 with the same stomach-churning mix of hope and fear that I find myself battling today. Will the economy recover? Can any sort of progress be made in the Middle East? Will our new administration deliver on the great hope and deep well of… Read full post »

The Open Call this week is: Tell us about your most memorable New Year's Eve.

We all have one. I remember a late-90s New Year's Eve in San Francisco that still makes me blush so deeply to even think about that I'm afraid if I offered any more details none of… Read full post »

We'll be catching up on our sleep a bit here, beginning Wednesday, Dec. 24th  through the New Year. We'll probably be scaling down to just one cover refresh a day, pooling our energy for what we know will be a fabulous 2009.

(Found at the impossibly addictive… Read full post »

A few members  asked what sort of advertising plan we have  for Open Salon. Social content sites are relatively new; there's no obvious path toward making money on them. (And to state the obvious: In these times as much as any, we need to make money.)

We're going to continue to run… Read full post »

This isn't the most cheerful of holiday subjects, but it's the one I think we're all the most absorbed by right now, whether we've been touched personally by it or not.

And many of us have been touched by it, of course. Procopius,  Edmund O'Reilly and Heather Ryan, among others,… Read full post »

As Open has grown, we've increasingly been the target of spammers trying to make a quick buck. Our crack tech staff has managed to install a few key checks to keep out many of the  spammers who are trying to break in, and will be installing more and investigating others. But… Read full post »

Thanks to everyone for responding to last week's call. What can we say? You depressed us -- in the best way possible. Read the stories on this special edition cover, and we defy you not to feel a whole lot better about your current plight. And if not, maybe you'll at… Read full post »

Thanks to all who have contributed such great responses to last week's question, Tell us about the worst job you've ever had. We'll be featuring responses in a special edition of Open Salon this coming weekend (to go up Friday evening).

On to this week's question!

Read full post »

Occasionally in the past we've appealed to Open members to "share" -- through the DIGG, Del.ic.ious, Facebook or Reddit icons in the top lefthand corner of every post -- certain select posts. Before we do that again, I thought it would help explain why we ask.

These social programs --… Read full post »

Compiling the stories for this very special Great Love Stories edition was a remarkably huge, and rewarding, challenge. We can't really do justice to the wonderfully stirring posts contributed by Open members. We swooned, we cheered, we wiped away the tears. I hope you enjoy reading these as much as… Read full post »

 (UPDATE: Currently, we're unable to automatically import your external blog -- you can only import individual posts. That part of the feature is going through a fix. KL)

Almost since the day we launched, members have asked: I already have a blog. Is there a simple way I can cross-post… Read full post »

The question this week emerges from the dark recesses of our own paranoid fantasies -- ones we bet you're experiencing lately, too.  Amid the awful stories of wholescale layoffs and  corporate downsizing, we can't help but wonder: What would it be like to have to return to the worst job… Read full post »

I didn't get a chance to blog about this before the holiday (though Biblio Files did), but some of you alerted me to an NPR report last month, which broadcast part of a speech by Maxine Hong Kingston. Kingston had been given an honorary award at this year's National Book Awards… Read full post »

Holidays invariably cause us to think of our great loves, don't they? We'll be lost in the mindless ritual of it all -- cooking the stuffing,  sending out cards, buying a gift for someone we barely know -- and then be stopped cold, blinking amid the neon, wondering why any of… Read full post »